Arthur Pue Gorman (1839-1906) represented Maryland in the U.S. Senate from 1881 to 1899 and again from 1903 until his death in 1906. Gorman informally led the Senate Democrats throughout the 1890s and was unanimously elected as the first official chairman of the Senate Democratic Conference on March 6, 1903. His congressional career began in 1852 when he became a page in the House of Representatives. Senator Stephen A. Douglas brought him to the Senate, appointing him as his personal secretary. While still on the Senate staff, Arthur Gorman avidly played baseball in the evenings, becoming president of the National Association of Base Ball Players in 1867. Eventually, the young Gorman advanced to the position of postmaster before leaving Senate employment in 1866. Following ventures in business and a distinguished career in the Maryland state legislature, Gorman became a U.S. senator in 1881. He proved to be a skilled strategist and compromiser, and was instrumental in passing the "McKinley tariff" in 1890 and the "Wilson-Gorman tariff" of 1894. A portrait of Senator Gorman by Louis P. Dietrich is in the Senate’s collection of fine art.
